Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able, please remain standing. And let's turn our attention now to
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Romans, chapter thirteen. Romans thirteen, versus the eight through fourteen, Romans
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Thirteen, verse eight. Oh,
no one anything except to love each other,
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for the one who loves another has
fulfilled the law. For the Commandments,
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you shall not commit adultery, you
shall not murder, you shall not
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steal, you shall not covet in
any other commandment are all are summed up
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in this word. You shall love
your neighbor as yourself. Love does no
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wrong to a neighbor. Therefore,
love is the fulfilling of the law.
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Besides this, you know the time
that the hour has come for you to
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wake from sleep, for salvation is
nearer to us now than when we first
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believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand. So
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then, let us cast off the
works of darkness and put on the armor
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of light. Let us walk properly
as in the daytime, not in orgies
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drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and
sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy,
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but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh
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to gratify its desires he may be
seated. So here in Romans Thirteen,
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in these verses eight through the end
of the chapter, e through fourteen,
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Paul gives us some wonderful and very
clear instructions about how we ought to live
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our lives. The first thing he
says is that we ought to love one
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another. He says that all the
commandments, and he points particularly to what
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we sometimes call the second table of
the Ten Commandments, commandments six through ten.
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He says these commandments are all summed
up in this one phrase. You
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shall love your neighbor as yourself.
This is what Jesus said and taught and
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of course it's as we read in
proverbs. This has been said before,
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the command to not neglect or do
evil to our neighbors, but to love
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them. This is the thing that
is to characterize the Christian life. This
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is true not only of our relationships
between one another. Is Brothers and sisters,
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that we ought to love one another, but our relationships with all people,
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though. It us again that this
is this theme of Love Has Been
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Frequent in in chapter twelve and chapter
thirteen. If Christ loved US, as
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Paul says in Romans Five, so
much that he gave his life, how
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appropriate is it for us to think
about our giving our own lives and love
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to other people, as Christians,
as people who are in Christ and belong
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to his name, even share his
name? To love one another? This
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is what we are called to do. This is the positive way of putting
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the or of characterizing the lives we
are supposed to live. Paul does that
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in verses eight through ten, then
eleve it. Then in eleven through fourteen
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he says the same thing, but
he puts it in the negative or on
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the flip side of it. Instead
of love, he says or not instead
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of love. But he says,
as you love one another, that means
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not doing evil, not doing works
of darkness. We are to, as
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he says in verse Thirteen, Walk
Properly as in the daytime. And he
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lists a number of things that Christians
should not participate in. Not have anything
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to do with orgies, drunkenness,
sexual immorality, sensuality, quarreling, jealousy,
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he sums he takes these things and
he adds to them. When he
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says make no provision for the flesh
to gratify its desires, he's pointing out
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what he has pointed out before in
Romans that in us there is still remaining
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a fleshly nature. It's being sanctified, it's being saved, the Holy Spirit
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is is working in US and growing
US and helping us, but there,
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if we are honest, there remains
something not right, something sinful, something
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that is against God. Recognizing that, that there are desires in us that
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ask to be gratified is helpful because
it helps us to know how we ought
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to treat treat them, as he
says, make no provision for them.
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It's such a strong way of speaking
and it's a reminder that we often do
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make provision for the flesh. And
how wrong is that? Does that make
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any sense? If you have mold
growing in your house, do you try
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to make it more humid? Do
you try to create an environment in which
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it might be able to grow?
If, if you, if you get
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some poison in your body, you
do try to find ways to spread it,
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open it up, allow it to
spread, or do you try to
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isolate it or get it out or
attack it? If, for some reason,
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with sin, we often do make
provision for the flesh. We plan
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fleshly things. Even remember in proverbs
it said not to plan evil against your
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neighbors, while I would never do
that. Well, yes, you would.
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You do you have? Well,
y'all, do I have? We
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find ourselves sometimes, or is sometimes
we even push ourselves into planning evil things,
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devising evil things, and if we
don't go that far, then perhaps
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making provision for them. Well,
if it just so happened that such and
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such a situation were to come into
my life will, then maybe we shouldn't
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be thinking in those ways, or
to cut sins off at the past or
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not to allow them into our lives. We're not to make provisions for them.
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Just to give one more example,
when we invite people into our homes,
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what do we do? We know
that they're going to becoming we make
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provision for them. We make sure
we have food on hand, if they're
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going to be staying the night,
that there's clean towels, are clean bedding,
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that there's a comfortable place for them
to be. We make provision for
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it. We shouldn't do this when
it comes to sin, when it comes
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to our fleshly nature, to invite
it into our homes and into our hearts,
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to create a safe, inviting space
for it. We are called to
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be at war with our flesh not
hospitable toward it. Well, being at
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war with our flesh means loving our
neighbor and doing right. These are the
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commands that God gives to us in
Romans Thirteen, eight through fourteen. Now,
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these commands and this way of living, Paul puts in a very particular
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perspective which I want to have you
help you focus on this morning. He
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says in verses eleven through fourteen,
that there is this time that we are
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in, that we are to think
about our lives in this way, both
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both sort of putting off evil and
putting on the armor of life or or
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light, both in shunning evil and
in loving our neighbors. He says this
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not only does love fulfill the law, but he says in Verse Eleven,
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besides this about love fulfilling the law. Besides this, know the time that
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the hour has come for you to
wake from sleep. There's this time in
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which we're living. I won't ask
you to raise your hands, but my
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guess is that maybe a few of
you, on your way out the house
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this morning, said it's time,
it's time to go right. There was
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this sense of that the hour is
at hand right and certain actions were required.
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Get Your Wallet, get the keys, do you have your purse?
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Did you get the Sunday school materials? Are The kids buckled? They are
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these things that need to happen because
the hour is at hand. There's a
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kind of urgency that happens when the
hour is at hand. A way of
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acting and thinking motivates our lives.
So not only do we have this reason
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that love is the essence and the
fulfilling of the law, which is a
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great reason all in itself, but
Paul adds this second one, which I
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think has a kind of urgency to
it. The Hour has come for you
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to wake from sleep. The alarm
clock is going off. Wake up,
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it's time to go. Something needs
to change. Being Asleep and being awake
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are two very, very different states, aren't they? I don't think I'll
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try to prove that. Well,
I'll just let that set. They're very
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different states. He gives a similar
phrase in verse twelve. The night is
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far gone, the day is at
hand, the sun is coming up.
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It's time to do something different.
It's time to wake up. And so
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what does he say? Let us
cast off the works of darkness and put
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on the armor of light. Let
us walk properly. Wake up, get
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up, it's daytime, let's walk
in the daytime. I think it deserves
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the these verses deserve. Are are
slowing down and meditating on them a little
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bit because here, in these these
beautiful verses, these powerful images, Paul
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is drawing on metaphors and descriptions that
are very common in scripture. I think
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by looking at a few other passages
so it'll help us to understand even in
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a thicker and more rich way,
the lives were called to live, what
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it means to not be in darkness
but be in light. First, consider
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the hour at its consummated estate,
what's sometimes called the day of the Lord.
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This is the brightest of the bright
this is high noon, when the
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day, as the sun, is
not only arisen but it's at its peak.
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And in the case of the day
of the Lord, when Jesus returns
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to come for his people and judge
the world, it's a day that will
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never end. Revelation tells us that
there will be no sun in Heaven because
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will simply live by the brightness of
Jesus. Amazing thought. Well, to
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that end, listen to Jesus's description
of this day from Luke, Chapter Twenty
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one in Luke Twenty one. At
versus twenty five through twenty eight, he
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speaks about his coming again, and
it comes in parallel with a sort of
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anticipatory judgment, if I can put
it that way. There is, he
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says in verses Twenty through twenty four, a time when the destruction of Jerusalem
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is coming. God's people are going
to suffer at an end of an era
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will come and, as he says
in twenty three, there will be great
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distress on the Earth and wrath against
this people. This judgment that was experienced
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when the temple was sacked and destruction
came to Jerusalem was a kind of foreshadowing
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of the last day. And then
Jesus speaks about that in verses twenty five,
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twenty five through twenty eight. Let
me read it to you. And
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there will be signs in sun and
moon and stars and on the Earth,
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distress of nations in perplexity because of
the roaring of the sea and the waves,
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people fainting with fear and with foreboding
of what is coming on the world,
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for the powers of the heavens will
be shaken and then they will see
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the son of man coming in a
cloud with power and with great glory.
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If you read these phrases, this
description, especially after the description that I
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didn't read, of the destruction of
Judah, about vengeance and wrath and people
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fleeing, and now you read about
the Sun and the moon and the stars,
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of the waves crashing up, the
water and earth, I'm sort of
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fighting against one another, heaven and
earth sort of tearing apart at the seems.
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Perplexity, confusion, fear, foreboding, the powers of the heavens being
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shaken, and then the son of
Man, God himself, coming on a
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cloud with power and great glory.
I ask, would you be scared?
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It sounds terrifying to me to have
the Earth and the heavens and all of
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creation come apart at the seems.
Everything that God has been holding fast through
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his covenant with Noah, the seasons
and cycles and I'm coming and the going
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and marriages and life and death,
all of a sudden being pulled apart.
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God's sustaining power in the world no
longer holding it all together but actually dissolving
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it in some way. This is
the time, the Great Day of the
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Lord. This is Jesus description of
his coming, but notice what he says,
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in the next verse and Verse Twenty
Eight. Now, when these things
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begin to take place, straighten up
and raise your heads because your redemption is
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drawing near. But why? I
hope I can do that, when the
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sun and the moon and the stars
are doing things I've never seen them do
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before, when waves are crashing and
all the powers and political powers of this
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earth are coming apart and everyone is
running for fear. I hope that we,
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as Christians, can do what Jesus
says, to not be afraid to
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hear that and say, Oh,
I know what this is about. I've
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heard about this. Jesus told us. This is no surprise, this is
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no great wonder. He said this
would happen. So I'm going to straighten
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up my back, I'm not going
to cower under a rock, I'm not
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going to fear the judgment of the
Lord. I'm going to raise my head
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and smile at the savior coming down
because redemption is at hand. It's drawing
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near. Isn't that wonderful to have
that kind of confidence? Jesus says we
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will have that kind of confidence because
we are his. If we are those
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who have been reconciled to God,
when he comes, he comes as our
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friend, not as our judge,
and we will know that that all judgment
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for us has passed away and we
come as the son of man comes,
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in power and in light and in
glory. We know that we aren't away
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from him to be judged by him. We belong to all that, the
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power and the glory and the light
and the resurrection and other things that are
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spoken about in other places. That's
us, that's ours, and so we
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can sing for joy and even the
darkest of times. That kind of perspective
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reminds me of of childbirth in a
way. When a woman is giving birth,
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it feels like her body is coming
apart, her life is ending.
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It's a terrible feeling. It's distressing. They scream, they cry, they
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panic and they're all these people smiling
around them, saying, you're doing great,
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everything's going well, it's almost here, we're so excited for you.
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Do you look at you say,
are you crazy? Jesus wants us to
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have that perspective, the people standing
around that woman. He gives us a
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kind of outside perspective about the hour
that is at hand. He helps us
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to see that, though things are
terrifying, feel terrifying, are very disruptive
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and we feel like our lives are
at end. He says, hear my
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word and believe, know who I
am, trust in me. But to
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read a couple verses now from the
Old Testament. First from Malachi, for
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one through three. For behold,
the day is coming, burning like an
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oven, when all the Hurrogan and
evildoers will be stubble. The day that
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is coming shall set them ablaze,
says the Lord of hosts, hosts meaning
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his mighty armies of Angelic Warriors,
so that it will leave them neither root
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nor branch. But for you who
fear my name, The Sun of Righteousness
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shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves
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from the stall and shall tread down
the wicked, for they will be ashes
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under the souls of your feet on
that day when I act, says the
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Lord of posts. It's powerful language, so are powerful and true promises.
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Do you hear these words about the
day, time and Light, the Sun
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of Righteousness Right, the Sun of
Righteousness rising and of birth? Right,
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you shall go out leaping like calves
from the stall and judgment, all of
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these images coming together, these prophecies
of darkness and light, of an hour
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at hand, of Judgment and salvation. One more from Isaiah. Nineteen,
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you're dead, shall live, their
bodies shall rise. You who dwell in
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the dust, awake and seeing for
joy, for your do is a due
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of light, and the earth will
give birth to the dead. You see
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all these images again, light and
darkness, birth or sorry, death and
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birth. Here the sense of the
earth and it's frailty and and even of
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the curse, and dust here is
is mentioned. So this is these all
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verses that I've been reading from,
from Luke, Malichi and Isaiah. Therere
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many others that are worth spending time
and reflecting on. The point to this,
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this hour that's at hand, this
day that has come in the coming
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of the Lord. Now, ultimately
it's going to come in this consummated way
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that we've been reading about. But
Jesus has already come, of course,
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right is John says the beginning of
his Gospel. The light has come into
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the world and the darkness has not
overcome it. The light that is coming,
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the hour, the time, is
not only a future event. It's
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daybreak and we might say as has
come. And so that leaves us this
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question. What about the time now? What about the days before the final,
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final day? What about the hour
and the age in which we are
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waiting for the consummated age to come? Well, Paul Draws on all of
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that language at the end and talks
about it in the here and now.
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So back to our passage in Romans
chapter thirteen. Listen again to his words.
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Besides this, remember his commands about
love. Know that the time,
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the hour has come for you to
wake from sleep. At that same language
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from Isaiah about waking from the dust, arising from the dead to sing for
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joy. Dead people don't sing for
joy. That people don't sing. But
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Jesus says that when we are born
through him, it's because we have died
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in his death. Go back to
Romans six and you can look at that.
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Having been buried with him, having
died with him, we now live
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with him. We are awake from
sleep, we are out of the darkness
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of the grave and every day that
goes on, what Paul says in verse
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eleven is even more true. Salvation
is nearer to us now than when we
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first believed. Every day that we
live that that brightness grows brighter, the
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day is even closer, and so
he says again in verse twelve. The
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night is far gone, the day
is at hand. Wake up, cast
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off the works of darkness and put
on the armor of light. Remember how
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often Theo and even in some of
these passages, we read this, the
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Lord coming on this cloud of power
and glory. Sometimes that cloud is described
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in scriptures as the angelic beings themselves, him riding on this chariot of fire.
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We read, and the whole Old
Testament passage is about him coming as
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the Lord of hosts. This warlike
image, they imagery, is now applied
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to us. We are to wake
up, cast off the works of darkness
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and put on the armor of light. Be Strong, be courageous, stand
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up straighten your backs, look up, put on the armor of light and
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let us walk properly. Has in
the daytime? Not In all of these
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things that, even now and in
English language and culture, are characterized by
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the night, orgies, drunken sexual
immorality, sensuality, perhaps even quarreling and
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jealousy. How do we live our
lives here and now with the same confidence
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and awareness and wakefulness that applies at
the end? You Remember all the parables
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about Jesus, about being ready for
the bride room is coming about being prepared
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for the day as a hand.
It's the same kind of thing here.
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We are not to be asleep,
not to be dead, and doing the
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things of death, doing the works
of darkness. When I think of these
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descriptions, of these sins a this
some of the first images that come to
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my mind are sort of dark scenes
and Charles Dickens novels. You have sort
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of back alleys and people sort of
scurrying around and doing bad things in the
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night, right, stealing people,
stealing money, holding people hostage, lying,
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planning the works of the night,
im morality. These things shouldn't even
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be named among you. If you
pick up this language and Ephesians Five,
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Paul says similar things here. Right, so Ephesians five. He says,
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therefore, do not become partners with
them, those of our seven, the
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partners with the sons of disobedience,
for at one time you were darkness,
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say you were in darkness. He
says. You were darkness, but now
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you are light in the Lord Walk, he says in the Fesians five verse
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a walk as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found
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in all that is good and right
and true. You see the works of
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darkness that Paul Speaks about and gives
examples of in Romans the court. The
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corresponding good works are here described in
Ephesians. The works of light are that
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which is good and right and true. Take no party, says in verse
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eleven, and the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them, for
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it is shameful even to speak of
the things they do in secret. But
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when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that
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becomes visible is light. Therefore,
it says, awake, oh sleeper,
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and arise from the dead, and
Christ will shine upon you. It be
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worth breathing on. But we need
to come to conclusion here. In Romans
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Thirteen, Paul says, you who
are in Christ, wake up. You
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Are the light. So let us
walk as those in the light, with
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confidence, with a whareness and with
joy. Some of you heard already that
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last night we found a centipede and
I spent to too much time not finding
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it. It's Day of Judgment is
coming very soon, perhaps even this afternoon.
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But do you know what happened?
When this evil creature was exposed to
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the light? It scurried away the
it's a nocturnal animal. It loves the
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darkness and it carries its little venomous
body around in my house in the darkness.
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And it won't any longer because,
as I said, the Day of
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Judgment. If this is true for
a bug there really hasn't done anything evil,
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it's just being what it is.
How much more true of this for
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weak creatures who've been made in the
image of God knowledge and righteousness and holiness,
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and then plunge ourselves into darkness and
scurry around in the darkness and hide
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ourselves in the darkness and when the
light comes we scurry away in the darkness.
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Judgment will come. We can't wait
around and say, well, maybe
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not, it's coming. Jesus came
into the world world and the darkness did
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not overcome the light. The light
has overcome the darkness and he will overcome
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it. There's no doubt about this. We have this in page after page
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of scripture. The good news for
us is that he gives us this opportunity
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to come as Centipedes, as these
evil, terrible, poisonous creatures, out
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into the light and to be accepted
by him, welcomed into his family.
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Has Children. Can you imagine?
But that's exactly what the word of God
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says. He says while you were
still sinners, while you still walked in
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the darkness, Jesus came into the
world and died a dark death for you.
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He took on your sins, he
took on darkness, he took on
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all evil so that we could be
saved. When you hear that word,
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that is not an opportunity for you
to scurry back into the corners of this
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world, to make provision for the
flesh. That is the door through which
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you walk into the household of God
and say I am no longer a worm
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but a son because of what you
have done. Our response to Romans Thirteen,
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the way that we can and ought
to live out the Romans Thirteen,
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is by giving ourselves over to Jesus
and The Majesty of His grace, the
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power of it, to confess ourselves
as darkness, as dust, as death,
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as sons of disobedience who are in
need of life. Our response to
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Romans Thirteen should be those who turn
from darkness to the light by walking through
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the door of the cross. And
when we do that we can straighten our
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backs, we can lift up our
heads and look out on the world and
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shine with the armor of light,
to shine with the grace and the glory
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and the power of Gold of God. We can walk in love towards God
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and man as we more and more
take on the life of Jesus and ourselves.
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This is what God promises to do
for us when we put our trust
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in him, when we give ourselves
over to him. So, if you
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hear this message, do that.
Don't wait for the Day of judgment to
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come. Let us pray
